Wakfu, Way of the Ninja
by Slavok
Summary: In this Wakfu/Naruto crossover, Yugo grew up in Konoha and ended up on the same team as Naruto.
1. Chapter 1

Wakfu, Way of the Ninja

Chapter One

"Congratulations on achieving the rank of genin," Iruka said at the front of the classroom. "You will now be split into three-person teams under a jounin sensei. When you hear your name, stand up so your teammates can see you. Team One will be..."

Naruto leaned forward in his seat, not wanting to miss a thing, but Iruka didn't call out his name. Team Two came and went, then Team Three, Four, and Five. He started to feel nervous that maybe his whole, "Become promoted to genin," thing hadn't gone through. And technically he _had_ failed the "official" genin exam, but he had made up for it by stealing the Scroll of Seals from the Hokage, learning a forbidden jutsu, and beating Mizuki up to a bloody pulp.

An unorthodox method of graduating, sure, but Iruka was impressed.

"Team Seven," Iruka said, "will be Uzumaki Naruto..."

Naruto jumped to his feet. "Finally!"

WWW

Kakashi stepped through the door of Naruto's apartment. The place was a mess with dirty dishes on the table and dirty clothes on the floor and a moldy, musty smell throughout.

So basically, a regular bachelor hovel.

He opened the fridge to see what his prospective student's diet was like. _Basic ramen, top ramen, instant ramen...and milk. Rancid milk. Or he's trying to make cheese. Lovely._

The kid apparently didn't invite many friends over. Or if he did, his friends had bad eyesight. And a weak sense of smell. And didn't mind the roaches. Or maybe his friends were the roaches.

That made Kakashi feel a bit bad about stepping on one of them. But not really.

WWW

"Hyuuga Hinata..." Iruka continued.

Hinata gasped. _Really? We're...we're on the same team?_ She didn't even know what to think. She had hoped that they would end up on a team together, but now that it was happening, the prospect terrified her. Iruka paused before announcing their third teammate, and she remembered that she was supposed to stand up.

WWW

Kakashi knew that Naruto was going to be trouble. As the jounin instructor of a genin team, he'd make sure they didn't hurt themselves too badly while training and that they didn't get themselves killed on missions, but most of their growth would come from learning the secret techniques from their own families and clans.

And Naruto was an orphan. Fantastic.

 _If I had known that this job was going to require work, I never would have volunteered!_

His next student, though was a Hyuuga, and if someone asked any of them, they'd reply with the most condescending tones they could muster that Hyuuga ninjas were the strongest ninjas, the Hyuuga clan was the strongest clan, and that the Hyuuga's techniques were the strongest techniques in all of Konoha, et cetera, et cetera. At least, they did ever since the Uchihas were wiped out.

He introduced himself at the gate as Hinata's jounin instructor, and asked to see her father. The next thing he knew, he was in front of the clan head himself.

 _I guess I should have looked into that beforehand._ But this was even better. Hyuuga Hiashi was her _father_? She probably had three personal instructors already. The only hard part would be pulling her from her training long enough to go on missions.

"Do what you want with her," Hiashi said, not even looking at him. "I have lost interest in the child years ago."

 _The_ child? That seemed...awfully distant. "I just want to make sure that her time on team building exercises and low level missions won't interfere with her...personal training regimen." _Please let her have a personal training regimen._

"The child is defectively weak. She will not be missed."

Kakashi breathed in sharply. He had known ninjas to abandon their friends before–they were a cold-blooded bunch at the best of times–but to abandon one's own _daughter_?

Kakashi barely had time to realize that he wanted to kill the man before the leading contestant for the World's Worst Dad Award turned his face towards him suddenly and activated his Byakugan.

 _Oh, right. Hyuugas always were sensitive about killer intent. Man, I'm good at making friends._

"You're dismissed, Hatake," Hiashi said.

The smart thing to do would be to leave politely. Antagonizing one of the physically and politically most powerful people in Konoha wouldn't help anyone.

"And you're a dick, Hiashi. Have a nice day."

Okay, not a smart move, but someone had to say it.

WWW

"...and Yugo."

WWW

Kakashi looked up at the sign of an inn.

 _Crunchy Gobball. What on earth is a Gobball? It sounds like something you cough up when you're sick._ And there was a mutant sheep grinning cheerfully on the sign. Great.

But in any case, his last student, Yugo, lived here, and after this he'd be done with his background checks.

Inside, a broad shouldered, barrel chested innkeeper with a white chef's hat and a long, drooping mustache greeted him with open arms and a wide grin. "Welcome to the Crunchy Gobball! You've just missed the lunch rush, but just make yourself comfortable and I'll heat up the soup of the day."

"I'm not here for that," Kakashi said. "I'm looking for Yugo's father. Is that you?"

"I am. The name's Alibert. What can I do for you?"

"I'm Kakashi, and I've been assigned as your son's jounin instructor."

Alibert's face lit up. "You are? That's fantastic! Have you eaten lunch yet?"

"Uh..."

"Then I'll make you second lunch. On the house. I insist." He stepped into the kitchen before Kakashi could respond and came back with a plate.

Kakashi looked down at his plate. "This is the soup of the day?"

"Yes."

"This is a steak." There was rice and sauteed vegetables underneath, but he didn't see any soup in it.

"I like my soup meaty."

He shrugged inwardly. He never liked soup much anyway, and he had never turned down steak before. "Thank you very much."

"Wow," Alibert said after seeing him eat. "I didn't know you could eat without taking your mask off. How did you do that?"

"Clan secret," he said, pushing the empty plate away.

"I'll bet it is. So, what can I do for you?"

"I wanted to see what your kid's personal training schedule was like." The records had Alibert as a civilian, but anyone driven enough could be self trained.

"You know, I don't think he has one," Alibert said, clearing the table "As soon as he gets home from the academy, he always helps out with the inn until closing."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, an expression that went entirely unnoticed. "You're aware that Yugo is graduating at the top of his class."

"He's always been a special child."

"And you never saw him studying or practicing or anything?"

"Like I said, he's a special child."

"I see. And I understand that he has a special bloodline? Some space-time jutsu?"

"Yes, he makes portals. He can serve every table without leaving the kitchen. It's been a huge help."

"And you taught it to him, right?" If Alibert was teaching his son ancient family techniques, then that would take some of the weight off of him.

"No, he came up with it himself."

"Really? How?"

WWW

It was Yugo's first week at the academy. The lectures were boring, the running and the knife throwing was fun, but the _chakra_ exercises were something else entirely.

Yugo had seen people meditating before. It had looked like a bunch of people sitting on the ground pretending to be awake. But then he _tried_ it, and it was like opening a door to another world!

"If it feels like nothing is happening, that's okay," one of the instructors said when the exercise ended. "Chakra manipulation takes a lot of time and patience, and no one gets it on the first try. Stand up everyone, we're going to do something a bit more fun."

The instructors split the students up into groups of two for sparring. "Normally we'd divide you based off of your skill, but since you just got here and don't have any skills, we're doing this based off of size. No weapons or special techniques, but beyond that, there's no need to hold back."

Yugo realized that he was the smallest guy in the class and found himself paired with the second smallest, a kid with bright blond hair and whisker marks on his face.

His opponent grinned. "Defeating you is my next step in becoming the next Hokage!"

"You're going to be the next Hokage?" Yugo asked in surprise. "They already decided that?" He didn't even know that the Third was retiring.

"No, _I_ decided that!" He launched himself into an attack, which Yugo sidestepped. His opponent didn't seem to know what he was doing, but Yugo didn't know what he was doing either. He figured that he was supposed to hit back at some point.

He reached out to...to what? Block? Counter? He wasn't sure, but with the chakra exercise fresh in his mind, he felt hyper aware of his own life energy flowing through his body, his heart– _his hands_ –and he opened a door to another world.

And his opponent fell into it.

The door vanished, leaving Yugo without an opponent.

"Hey," a chunin instructor said as he was passing by. "What happened to the kid you were paired with?"

"Um, he kind of disappeared," Yugo said, hoping he wouldn't get in too much trouble.

"What?" The man swore. "This is bad. I'll need an ANBU squad looking for him, and at least three kill teams."

The ears of his hat drooped visibly. Yep, he was in trouble.

"What's going on?" a second instructor asked.

"Naruto's loose," the first one said grimly. "Disappeared into thin air."

"I didn't mean to, I swear!" Yugo said.

Both men turned to him. "You didn't mean to do what?"

"I was...I don't even know what I did! I just stretched out my hand and..." He focused chakra into his hand like he had learned how to do earlier that day, in a way that he felt was a part of him his whole life. His palm began to glow blue, and he drew a circle in the air.

A blue portal formed, and his opponent popped out of it. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath.

"Huh, he's back," the first instructor said. "Oh well."

"Are you okay, Naruto?" the second one said.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "It will take more than that to...to..." His face turned green as he tried to stand, and he turned his head and vomited.

WWW

"And Yugo has been making portals ever since," Alibert finished.

"Interesting," Kakashi said. A space-time jutsu that didn't require hand seals? It had to be a bloodline. "And his ability skipped your generation?"

Alibert laughed and shook his head. "He's adopted. Everything skipped my generation."

"Huh. Well, thank you again for lunch. I should get going."

"Don't be a stranger!" Alibert called after him as he left.

Kakashi needed to rethink his strategy he decided as he walked to the academy. Usually the genins would learn family techniques and fighting styles and the jounin sensei could just focus on teaching them teamwork. But from what he'd seen, Naruto had no family, Yugo's family was only good for emotional support, and Hinata's family wasn't even good for that. Kakashi sighed inwardly. This was going to take a lot of work.

In the back of his head, he heard Maito Gai laughing at him.

No, no, he wasn't that desperate. The day he resorted to hard work was the day he started wearing green spandex. And besides, the idea of being shadowed by a group of kids wearing lopsided forehead protectors and masks didn't appeal to him. People called him a genius, and if he was a genius of anything, it was of _avoiding_ hard work, not the alternative. Heck, if it weren't for his "Eternal Rival," as Gai liked to call himself, he wouldn't have exerted himself at all in the past decade.

 _Eternal Rival..._

An idea popped into his head. Experienced ninja trained and improved to beat their enemies, but genin lived such sheltered lives, enemies were an abstraction. Friends, though, were very, very real. If he could encourage a rivalry between his students, then they'd do most of the work for him.

In a worst case scenario, they'd take the rivalry too far and spend the rest of their lives trying to kill each other, but that hardly ever happened. Still, they'd need good teamwork to survive always being at each other's throats. No, they'd need _great_ teamwork. If they didn't have that, then there was no point in taking them anyway.

He reached the academy and found the room where he was supposed to meet his team. As soon as he opened the door, a chalkboard eraser fell on his head and a blond kid in an orange jumpsuit started laughing hysterically.

 _Real mature,_ he thought, picking it up. _If I do end up having to drop these kids, I think I could live with that._

WWW

a/n This story is probably a bad idea that I will abandon in a few chapters, but you never get good ideas unless you're willing to risk bad ideas, so here it is. This is more of a prologue than anything else. I changed a few other things beside bringing Yugo and his dad to Konoha, which I will explain later when they become relevant, such as where Sasuke is in all this after Yugo took his spot on Team Seven.

If I focus more on the Wakfu aspect of this story than the Naruto part, it's because I'm assuming that more of my readers are familiar with Naruto but not Wakfu than the reverse, but I'll try to make this story readable for everyone. If any part if it doesn't make sense, let me know, and I'll do what I can to rebalance it.


	2. Chapter 2

Wakfu Way of the Ninja

Chapter Two

"So, why don't you introduce yourselves." Kakashi had brought them to the roof of the academy.

The blond kid in an orange jumpsuit and a bad sense of humor was Naruto. Looked just like his dad, only smaller. And obnoxious. He was probably the most infamous kid in Konoha, with more lifetime bans before he could walk than most people achieved in their entire lives.

The girl with the Hyuuga eyes and the Hyuuga skin tone and the Hyuuga emblem on her coat was probably Hinata. Probably. While the blank white eyes made most Hyuugas look mysterious, wise, and even fierce, Hinata ended up looking perpetually surprised.

That left the third one as Yugo. He wore a sleeveless yellow shirt and blue shorts, but his most distinctive feature was his hat. It was blue with a broad tail and ears on it. Well, he'd seen ninjas in sillier costumes and wouldn't have thought anymore of it, but then the hat ears _twitched_. Like the ears of a cat or a fox, the hat ears perked up when he was excited and drooped when he was disappointed. It wouldn't be that hard to run chakra through the fabric, but to do it so it looked natural, well, Kakashi liked to show off at that age too.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, just tell me something about yourself," Kakashi said easily. "Likes, dislikes, ambitions, you know, stuff."

"Could you go first?" Yugo asked.

"Sure," he said. "I like...things, I dislike...other things, and my ambitions...I don't feel like talking about those right now. Right, so who's next?"

"Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" Naruto said, waving his arms in the air just in case Kakashi didn't hear him. "I like ramen and eating ramen and then eating more ramen. I dislike how long it takes to cook ramen and bullies self-centered jerks who think they're better than everyone else. And my ambition is that when I grow up, I'm going to be Hokage!"

"That's great, kid," Kakashi said. "Who's next?"

"I'll go," Yugo said. "I like cooking, helping my dad out at the inn, people, meeting new people, making new friends, going to new places, and learning new skills. I dislike...huh. Well, I don't like funerals, but who does? And for ambitions, I'm going to travel all over the world and go _everywhere_!"

"Also realistic," Kakashi said. "Hinata, you're up next."

"Um, I like..." She glanced at Naruto and ducked her chin under the forehead protector she wore around her neck. "I like pressing flowers and making healing ointments. I dislike people who are cruel for no reason. My ambition is to train and become stronger to prove myself to my clan, my father, and..." She opened her mouth to speak more, but no sound came out. "And that's all."

"Well, that was fun," Kakashi said brightly. "I feel like I got to know you all a lot better." All of their dreams were impossible, but that was okay. They were young, and they had their whole lives to become jaded and cynical. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

"What?" Naruto demanded. "Aren't you going to train us?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I haven't decided yet."

Yugo looked up. "So you can decide not to?"

"Of course. Your chunin instructors said you all earned the rank of genin, but I don't have much trust in their evaluations, so I'm going to make my own. If you pass, you'll be my students, and if you don't, you'll be theirs again."

"What?" Naruto said. "Oh, heck no! I've worked way too hard to get through the academy to get sent back!"

"If that's true, then you should have no problem. No genin worthy of the rank would fail my test. But the last two groups they sent me were really pathetic, I mean the whole thing was just sad. But you guys, well, one of you might pass. Heck, maybe even two of you will."

"Or three of us?" Hinata asked hopefully.

"No," Kakashi said. "One of you _will_ fail. Two of you _might_ pass."

"What?" Naruto demanded. "That's not fair!"

Kakashi shrugged. "Neither am I. Be at training ground...oh, let's go with number fifteen at five in the morning. If you don't skip breakfast, you'll throw up, and if you're not prepared for anything, you'll fail. But don't stress out about it. Ah, who am I kidding? Stress out all you want. It won't help."

They looked up at him, all grimly credulous. Was he ever that gullible? He didn't think so, but his sensei was a lot more trustworthy than he was.

"Well, see you tomorrow."

WWW

If he was going to skip breakfast the next morning, Naruto was going to eat an extra big dinner to make up for it. "Another bowl, Mr. Teuchi!"

Teuchi, owner and head chef of the world famous Ichiraku Ramen shop, refilled his bowl with steaming hot deliciousness. "So, what's the occasion? Your first day as a genin was that good?"

"No, but tomorrow's going to be _intense_!" He slurped up a mouthful of ramen. _Oh, that's good stuff._ It wasn't just the taste, or the temperature, or the texture, but it was everything put together that made ramen _perfect._ "Tomorrow, my new sensei's going to take us on a survival mission, and whoever fails gets sent back to the academy!"

"That _does_ sound intense. Well, if you pass, be sure to drop by here tomorrow to celebrate."

"You bet I will!"

"And if you fail, you're always welcome to drown your sorrows in broth and noodles."

"Oh, that sounds good." Naruto finished off his bowl. "One more!"

He couldn't afford to fail tomorrow. He didn't have anything against his teammates–he didn't know either of them that well, but Hinata was never mean to him, and Yugo had sometimes even laughed at his pranks before someone else shushed the kid to stop Yugo from "encouraging him"–but he'd need to be stronger than either of them. Iruka-sensei made him a genin, and he wasn't going to let _anyone_ take that away from him. No matter what.

WWW

The dinner rush at the Crunchy Gobball came and went, and Yugo helped his dad clean up the kitchen. "So," Alibert said. "What do you think of your new team?"

"There are two kids from the academy and a jounin in charge of us. The girl, Hinata, seems nice, but never says much. The boy, Naruto, you know how someone painted word bubbles on the Hokage Monument a while ago?"

Alibert smiled. "Yeah?" One morning, the ancient leaders of Konoha had seemed to be spouting sage sayings, like, "The meaning to life is cheese!" and, "Smile if you're not wearing undies!" Some of Naruto's pranks were funny, others were obscene, and the rest were both.

"Well, that was him."

"Just one kid?"

"Yep."

"Impressive, impressive. And the jounin? Did he have white hair and a mask?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"He came by earlier asking about you."

"I don't know what to make of him. He already decided to fail one of us and send us back to the academy."

"Really?" Alibert frowned.

"Yeah, and I'm sure I'll do fine, but I don't want either of the other two to fail." He grinned slowly. "Hey, maybe all three of us will pass, and we'll send _him_ back to the academy!"

WWW

Hinata prepared what to say if her father asked her how her day went. She had no idea what to say if she got sent back to the academy, and deep inside, she knew she would.

The day before, she told her father that she had graduated from the academy. She had hoped that he would be impressed, or glad, or at least relieved that she hadn't embarrassed the clan.

Instead, he had asked her one question. "And?"

"That is all."

"Ah."

And she was dismissed. As a Hyuuga, she was _expected_ to excel, not just pass. Anything less was an embarrassment to the clan. Even the possibility of failure was out of the question.

And yet for her, it was all too familiar. Tomorrow, she would rise, she would fight, and she would fail, but knowing that, she would fight anyway. And that alone was worth something.

Wasn't it?

As she retired to bed, she thought back to the ambition that she had shared with her teammates, as temporary as they might be, and the words she had not shared.

 _To train and become stronger to prove myself to my clan, my father..._

 _And to myself._

WWW

A/n I know this chapter is pretty short, but the next part with the bell test is pretty long and this seemed like the best place to break in a chapter. I'm almost done editing chapter three, so expect it shortly, and thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Wakfu Way of the Ninja

Chapter Three

"Well, I'm glad all three of you showed up," Kakashi said the next morning. Yugo and Naruto glared at him, and even Hinata seemed disappointed in his conduct.

"You're late!" Naruto accused.

"Am I? Well, it's such a nice day, I decided to take the scenic route."

"The scenic route?" Naruto demanded. "For _five hours_?"

"It's very scenic. Now, you only have until noon to finish my test, but we can keep talking about this for the next twenty minutes if you want."

That shut him up.

He held up two bells. "The objective is to take one of these bells. If you don't, you get tied up to that pole over there and you miss lunch."

"Oh, so _that's_ why you told us to skip breakfast!" Yugo accused.

"Yep."

"But breakfast is the most important meal of the day! I will never trust anything you say ever again!"

"Very good, Yugo. You just learned the first rule about trust."

"What?"

"Don't do it," he explained. "Now, there are no rules of engagement, nothing is forbidden. Use whatever tricks, jutsus, or weapons you can, because if you hold back, you will fail."

"But we could hurt someone like that!" Yugo protested.

 _Oh no, what a nightmare!_ "I think I can handle a couple of rookie genin."

"Yeah, right!" Naruto said. "You couldn't even dodge that eraser!"

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "That wasn't an attack. That was a childish prank of a hopeless loser crying out for attention. Now, when I say, 'start,' I want you to–"

Naruto pulled out a knife and charged. "I'll show you, you creep!"

 _Touched a nerve, have we?_ Kakashi made a mental note to belittle the kid further if he ever needed motivation. Until then, he flipped Naruto onto his back and pinned him to the ground. "Now, what are you doing? I didn't even say 'start' yet."

"Yes you did, twice!"

He smiled at that. "You're attack was obvious, clumsy, and slow, but you _were_ trying to kill me, so how can I say this? I think I'm starting to like you kids." He hopped off of Naruto and let the kid get up. "Now, start."

WWW

" _One Thousand Years of Pain!"_

WWW

Naruto didn't know how long the test had been going, but it was long enough for him to end up dangling upside down by his ankle for like a hundred times. And of course, each time that happened, all his kunai fell out of his pouch so he couldn't even cut himself free. He saw Yugo and Hinata come into view.

Yugo grinned as he looked up (down?) at him. "Hey, Naruto. Need a hand?"

"I got this," he growled. He felt dizzy from all the blood rushing to his head, but he got himself into this mess and he'd get himself out of it.

"What you got is thirty minutes," Yugo said. He threw a shuriken at the rope Naruto hung from, dropping him to the ground.

Naruto untied the rope at his feet and got up. "Thanks, but I had that! Also, why are you helping me? This is a competition, remember?"

"I thought so too," Yugo said, "but then I ended up buried up to my neck in dirt, giving my time to think. And I realized that if you have to beat a jounin to become a genin, then something's messed up."

"Yeah, but he outranks us," Naruto said. "He can get away with being a jerk and give us this stupid test."

"But what if he's _not_ testing us?" Yugo asked. "What if he's teaching us?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I saw most of your fight with Kakashi, and I'm betting that he gave you some advice during it."

"Yeah, he told me not to let your enemy get behind you, because if you do, he'll do terrible, _terrible_ things to your–"

"Right, I overheard that part. Did he tell you anything else?"

Naruto thought back to his fight. He had been focusing on hitting the arrogant jerk who had pulled out his book just to show him that he didn't need to take him seriously. He had gotten close– _so close!_ –but that was just Kakashi toying with him.

"He also told me to think before I act, and not to take the bait if it's obvious."

Yugo nodded. "Sounds useful. How about you, Hinata? Did he tell you anything?"

She nodded. "Kakashi-sensei told me that...that if I defeat myself before I start fighting, then I've already lost."

"Perfect!" Yugo said. "That means we have a chance."

"I'm not sure that's..." Hinata stared. "If you say so."

"What did he tell you?" Naruto asked.

"He told me to stop holding back and use everything I could."

"And that's why you decided to come back and try to _use_ the two of us?" He hated being used. It was like Mizuki all over again

Yugo shrugged. "It was an obvious hint."

"But there are still only two bells," Naruto pointed out.

"Sure, there are two bells, two lunches, but _three_ posts. We could all end up tied to them if we don't work together."

"And after we get the bells, then what?" Naruto asked. "Do we then try to stab each other in the back as quickly as possible?"

Yugo looked at him solidly. "After we get the bells, what happens to us will be _our_ decision, not his."

Naruto met his eyes, and nodded. "Well, even if it ends up being me getting sent back, it will be worth it to show that stupid jerk a thing or two. I'm in."

Hinata stood up a bit straighter. "Me too."

"Okay," Yugo said, clapping his hands together. "We have twenty minutes. Before we come up with a plan, we need to know what each other can do. Naruto, you go first."

"You've seen what I can do. Shadow clones.

"Limits?"

"I don't believe in limits."

"Hinata?"

"I can use the Byakugan," she said. "It grants three-hundred-and-sixty degree vision and lets me see chakra and through most illusions."

"That sounds useful. Limits?"

"I used up most of my chakra in my fight with Kakashi. I won't be able to sustain the Byakugan for more than two more minutes."

"Then we'll need to work fast."

"What about you?" Naruto asked.

"I can make portals." He drew a circle with his chakra and a portal appeared. "You've seen them before in the academy. I can have two going at a time, and I can open them up fifty feet away and keep them open for a few seconds, but further or longer gives me trouble. Now, what do we know about Kakashi?"

"He lies," Naruto said. "He told us to be here at five and skip breakfast; he wasn't here till ten and we _shouldn't_ have skipped breakfast."

"He is skilled in hand to hand combat and illusions," Hinata said.

"Ninjutsu, too," Yugo added. "He'd rather outwit us than overpower us. He could hurt us, but he doesn't."

Naruto gave him a flat look. "My anus disagrees with you." There was _nothing_ funny about One Thousand Years of Pain.

"He could _kill_ us, but he didn't."

"Fair enough."

"Does he have any weaknesses?" Yugo asked. "I didn't even manage to land a hit on him."

"Me neither," Naruto admitted.

"Yes you did," Hinata said. Both turned on her, and she shrank back a bit.

"When?"

"Y-yesterday."

"Yesterday? What, you mean with that chalk eraser? That doesn't count, Kakashi didn't even...consider it an attack." Naruto's eyes widened and he grinned slowly. "Hinata, you're a genius!"

Her face turned pink. "I...what?"

Naruto looked at a clock in the distance. They had fifteen minutes left, but he didn't think they'd need more than five. "Okay, I got a plan."

WWW

Kakashi stood in the middle of a field, reading his book. That made him easy to find, but impossible to sneak up on, and, if Yugo was right, their "sensei" wanted both. Naruto wanted to charge up there and beat the man to a bloody pulp, but Kakashi hadn't told him to stop holding back, or to believe in himself. He told him to think.

And so Naruto thought. He thought through the whole thing.

He charged up to his sensei as though ready to beat him to a bloody pulp and stopped in front of him. "Okay, Kakashi, you jerk! You may have made a fool out of me before, but now it's my turn! Prepare for a secret technique that not even the Hokage could handle!"

"That's nice, Naruto," he said, turning a page.

Naruto fumed, then he put his hands together to form a hand seal. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" A dozen shadow clones appeared around the field.

"Hm, shadow clones," Kakashi said. "I think I've seen those before."

"Yeah? Well how about _this_? Naruto Secret Technique, Harem no Jutsu!" The shadow clones matched his hand seals and reappeared in a puff of smoke in the form of a dozen naked women making seductive poses and giggling.

"Not bad," Kakashi said, barely glancing up from his book. "If the whole ninja thing doesn't work out for you, you could always get a job at a strip club."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "That's it?" He dropped the transformation, but didn't dismiss the clones. "That's your only reaction? The Hokage passed out from just one of these!"

"Was he reading a book at the time?"

"No."

"It's hard to be distracted by naked women when you have a book to read."

"What sense does that make?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I'll tell you when you're–"

The clones drew their knives and threw them at him. Kakashi hopped out of the way and landed on the other side of them. He didn't look surprised, or even impressed, but when he landed, his foot stepped into a portal.

In an open field, they couldn't sneak up on him, but they were close enough to the trees so Yugo could hide and still throw portals.

Kakashi should have fallen over or through the portal, but even off balance, his left foot seemed to stick to the ground and he pulled his right foot out–with Yugo holding onto it with one hand and holding a knife with the other.

He brought the knife down onto Kakashi's foot, but Kakashi grabbed his wrist and threw him aside. Yugo caught himself in another portal and shot himself back, feet first. Kakashi blocked his kick with one hand, but when Yugo threw his knife at him, he couldn't block with the other without risking his book, so he had to dodge.

By then, Naruto's clones had surrounded him again, and they threw shuriken at him in unison just as Yugo jumped through a portal and attacked Kakashi from above. Surrounded on all three sides, there was no way he could dodge.

But Kakashi dodged anyway, somehow, substituting himself with a small log.

"Where is he?" Yugo yelled out.

Hinata, who had been approaching them during the fight with her bookoogoo eye thing going on, however you pronounced it, pointed into the distance. "There he is!"

Kakashi was walking casually away from them. He looked over his shoulder with an innocent look on his face. "Who, me?"

"Get him!" Naruto yelled. This part he didn't think through, but they had less than two minutes until Hinata's abilities wore off, and then they wouldn't even be able to keep track of the guy.

Kakashi sank into the ground like it was made of water. Yugo yelped and jumped onto the shoulders of one of Naruto's shadow clones.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm pretending the ground is lava until we find out where he is," Yugo said. "He used this exact same attack when I fought him on my own to leave me buried alive."

"He's right there!" Hinata called out, pointing at the ground between them. Then she yelped and jumped back as Kakashi popped out of the ground right next to her. Kakashi put away his book and pulled out a smoke bomb. When the smoke cleared, there were two Hinatas facing each other with matching expressions of surprise.

They fell into matching stances and attacked each other with identical fighting styles.

"Okay," Yugo said, trying to remain calm. "This plan calls for some immediate improvisation."

"I agree," Naruto replied. Improv always came more naturally to him than planning things out anyway. He couldn't tell which Hinata was the real Hinata and which one was Kakashi, but he wasn't sure he needed to. "We should beat up both of them. It's the only way to be sure to get Kakashi." And Hinata could take a hit, right?

"Bad idea."

"Do you have any _good_ ones?" Naruto demanded. "We don't have any time." He didn't look at the clock, but he was pretty sure Hinata's two minutes were up, and they hadn't planned on having her fight in the first place.

"I'm thinking," Yugo said. "How well do you know Hinata? Have you seen her fight before?"

Naruto shook his head. "Before yesterday, I don't think I've ever heard her _talk_ before. But I have to say, she is _really_ good. I mean, she's keeping up with Kakashi and everything!"

When he fought him, Kakashi didn't even bother looking at him, saying that he was so clumsy it didn't matter if Kakashi was reading a book or taking a nap. And for the most part, he was right. But now, with Kakashi copying Hinata's appearance and fighting style, the two of them made it look more like a dance than anything else.

The style didn't look like anything they taught at the academy. They struck with their palms open and deflected each other's attacks at the wrist. Just watching it was mesmerizing.

Then one of them stumbled.

"He's that one!" Yugo called out.

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Yugo jumped through a portal and zaaped across the field. He should have waited for Naruto to catch up, but he didn't know how long Hinata could keep going or how long he could keep track of which one Kakashi was.

No, what he _should_ have done was stab Kakashi's foot when it was on his side of the portal, but instead he held back, exactly what Kakashi told him not to do, and let the man see him before he attacked.

He reached the two of them and attacked the one that didn't stumble.

Kakashi, with his shorter Hinata arms and legs, didn't have the same reach he had when they fought before, and with Hinata on one side of him and Yugo attacking through portals on every other side, he couldn't keep blocking forever.

"Why are you attacking me?" Kakashi demanded with a perfect imitation of Hinata's voice. "We're on the same team! Attack him!"

Then Naruto came running with his small army of shadow clones, and Kakashi jumped into the crowd, dropping the Hinata disguise and transforming himself into Naruto.

"Again?" Naruto demanded. "Seriously?"

Hinata gasped for breath, too exhausted to tell them which one Kakashi was, so she threw a knife at him.

The Naruto clone that Kakashi disguised himself as caught the knife and grinned back easily and turned back into his taller, masked self. "Well," the jounin said, "it was worth a shot."

"Get him!" Naruto yelled, and all the clones threw knives at him, far too many to block. Kakashi jumped backward, and in midair, his trajectory was easy to predict.

Yugo opened a portal right next to where Kakashi would go, reached through it, and pulled out a pair of bells. When he landed, Kakashi looked down at his belt where the bells had been and looked at Yugo, and seemed, despite himself, to be impressed.

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"We did it!" Naruto yelled. "Ha! In your face, Kakashi! You'll have to make your test way harder than that if you want to get out of training us!"

Hinata wished she could have joined in the celebration, but her head hurt so much, she felt it might explode. Exploding her head seemed like too much work, though, so she fell to her knees instead. Chakra exhaustion was something that she would _never_ get used to.

"Hey, Yugo," Naruto asked. "How'd you know which Hinata was really Kakashi?"

"The real one stumbled," he said.

 _Oh,_ she thought. She wanted to sink into the ground in shame. Kakashi had perfectly imitated her own clumsy imitation of the jyuuken, her clan's unique fighting style, but not even a jounin could predict her infinite capacity for error.

"See," Yugo continued. "If Hinata hit Kakashi, that would dispel his transformation, so we'd all know it was him. If Kakashi hit Hinata, then we'd see that she _didn't_ turn into Kakashi, so we'd still know it was him. Hinata couldn't hit him, so she dropped her guard to bait Kakashi into hitting her. He didn't fall for it, but since the real Hinata wouldn't have had any reason to ignore that opening, that meant that the other Hinata was fake."

"Wow!" Naruto said. He turned to her, a bright smile on his face. "That was really smart, Hinata! Way to go!"

That...that wasn't it at all. She had allowed herself to get distracted when she heard Naruto talking about her. She wasn't nearly as good at focusing as a Hyuuga should be, and hearing someone say actually _nice_ things about her was so overwhelming she lost her footing.

But looking up and seeing Naruto smiling at her like no one had _ever_ smiled at her before, she lost her resolve and mumbled, "Th-thank you."

"Also," Naruto said, pointing a finger at her. "That was _way_ more than two minutes."

Her spirits sank and she bowed her head in shame. "I-I'm sorry. A warrior should know her own limits, but I...I..."

"That's nonsense," Naruto said with a snort. "Like I said before, I don't believe in limits."

Hinata felt dizzy. She didn't have nearly the fortitude to handle such an emotional rollercoaster.

"Hey, Kakashi!" Naruto called. "I'm surprised you haven't taken your book out. You barely put it away during the fight."

"Yeah, but I don't want to miss this," Kakashi said. "This is the best part."

"What do you mean? We just passed your test."

"No you didn't. You need a bell to pass the test."

"What? But we..."

"Yugo got a bell, but the rest of you only have five minutes left."

 _And the rollercoaster continues._

" _What_? But...you...I..." Naruto clenched his fists and pointed a finger at Kakashi. "You're a jerk-faced son-of-a-jerk, you jerk!"

"I bet you always got called a brown nose at the academy."

"All three of us worked together to get those stupid bells!"

"And one of you three is going to get sent back to the academy."

"Your rules suck."

"Yup. And you only have five minutes to vote someone off the team, or fight it out, or whatever."

Fight it out? She didn't trust herself to stand, let alone fight. And for five minutes, with his portals Yugo could keep out of her reach even if she were refreshed.

Yugo looked down at the bells as though he held all their fates in the palm of his hand. And, in fact, he did. "Let's talk about this. How badly do you guys want to be genin?"

Hinata looked down at the grass. How badly did she want it? As much as life itself. If she returned home, stripped of the forehead protector that bore the emblem of Konoha's ninja, that would be the last straw for her father. He'd never look at her again and dismiss her as the eternal failure she was.

Of course, even as a genin, she had little to no chance of gaining her father's approval, but she thought back to her first fight with Kakashi.

They were in the darker part of the forest, and he had opened with a genjutsu, which itself was an insult considering her family's bloodline. When she saw through it, she knew that if she fought Kakashi on her own, she'd fail, but she fought anyway–and she failed, just as she knew she would.

But before he defeated her, he said to her, "You're not a bad fighter, and you have sharper senses than most kids your age, but if you defeat yourself before you even start fighting, then you've already lost."

And later, Naruto echoed the same idea much more simply when he said, "I don't believe in limits."

That was so opposed to the Hyuuga way that burned the fates of their children into their foreheads almost as soon as they were born, it was practically heretical. And Hinata latched onto that idea as though all her hopes and dreams depended on it.

And in a way, they did.

"I can't fail," she whispered. "If I get sent back to the academy, my f-father will..." Her voice caught in her throat. "He has very high expectations."

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Naruto ran his fingers across the leaf symbol of his forehead protector with his eyes closed. How much did he want it? Becoming Hokage was his _dream_ , he'd wanted it since he first understood what it meant, and becoming a genin was the next step on that journey.

But it was more than that. He stumbled along his way more than once, failing the genin exam three times before passing. But Iruka-sensei had promoted him to genin, and given him his own forehead protector to wear as his own!

Iruka-sensei _believed_ in him. He was the first person to _ever_ believe in him. And no one–jounin, sensei, or even the Hokage himself–was going to take that away from him.

"Iruka-sensei promoted me to genin," he said. "I'm not going to let him down."

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Yugo looked down at the bells. _I hold their fates in my hand. That's the last thing I wanted to happen._

Naruto had something to prove; he _always_ did, he was Naruto. And Hinata, well, it sounded like she had one of _those_ dads who lived vicariously through their kids to make up for all the opportunities they botched.

But what about himself? How badly did he want to be a ninja? He could learn jutsus and fighting styles without even trying, but what he wanted to do was travel. Every day at the Crunchy Gobball, he met customers from all over the world. Some were merchants, others were people who wanted to hire a team of ninjas, but they were all from some far off land that Yugo could only read about.

None of them had heard of the town Emelka or the country Amakna where Alibert had found him, but if he became a ninja, he'd be able to travel _anywhere_.

But was that what being a ninja was all about? At the start of the test, Naruto had tried to kill Kakashi, and Kakashi had responded with open approval. When Yugo had fought Kakashi the first time, he had avoided using knives or anything that could injure him.

Kakashi had grown frustrated, and after he grabbed by his ankle and pulled him down into the ground, burying him up to his neck, he said to him, "It doesn't matter how strong or fast you are, Yugo. If you hold back against an enemy, you'll only put yourself and your team in danger, so either come at me with everything you got or go home."

Yugo deliberately interpreted "everything" as "everyone," but what if Kakashi meant something else? If he met an enemy in real life, would he go straight for the kill, or would he try to take him alive?

Yugo shook his head. He knew the answer to that, and suspected that it wasn't one Kakashi wanted. He knew being a ninja wasn't about seeing the world, but if it was about acquiring the detached, logical, _insane_ philosophy of Us and Them, dividing the world into friend and foe, then that wasn't a path he could follow, nor was it one he wanted to.

"Okay," he said brightly, and he tossed the bells to his teammates. "Being a genin was lots of fun. I'll have to try this again next year."

"What?" Naruto said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting demoted, apparently." He turned to Kakashi. "Hey, if I'm not a genin anymore, then you're not my sensei, right? That means I don't have to let you tie me to that pole while everyone else eats lunch." He was hungry from missing breakfast, and he hated being tied up.

"But you can't just _quit_ ," Naruto whispered. "You...you can't..."

Naruto and Hinata looked at him with expressions mixed with shock, surprise, denial, and a bit of gratitude. _It's not like I'm dying for you._ "It's no big deal, really," Yugo said. "I know my dad will still love me no matter what I do, and I can spend another year at the academy and still make chunin before too long. But it was fun. The three of us would have made a good team."

Naruto bit his lip, and for a moment it looked like he was about to start crying. "W-would we?" he stuttered. "I don't know. I've never been on a team before. Is this how it's supposed to work? When I learned how to make shadow clones, I was excited, because I thought I'd be able to do all the things I couldn't do by myself, like tag and soccer and hide-and-seek. But after this, after working with you and Hinata to bring down Kakashi, I...I guess there are some problems I can't solve with shadow clones."

He gripped his bell tightly in a fist. "But I can solve this! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Another Naruto appeared in a cloud of smoke...with another bell. The clone handed Yugo the bell, and Naruto turned to Kakashi with a feral grin on his face."

"Three of us, three bells, in your face, _sensei_!"

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The bells were never the issue. Kakashi had decided to pass the kids when they first started working together, but they were doing so well, he decided to keep going to see if they actually managed to take the bells anyway. He was holding back, of course. If he wasn't, then there were some jounin that wouldn't be able to live through the test, let alone pass.

But they didn't disappoint. They were genin, and more than skilled enough for the rank, but most importantly, they worked as a _team_.

Of course, the price of teamwork was sacrifice, but the closest analogy he could give them to dying would be to send them back to the academy, and the sort of kids willing to work together despite that was exactly the sort of kids he wanted under him.

"Okay, then," Kakashi said. "You all pass."

"All three of us?" Hinata asked. "Thank you, Kakashi-sensei."

"Ye-ah!" Naruto yelled, jumping in the air. "We did it!"

"Huh," Yugo said. "So now what?"

"Now I explain what that test was about."

"We already know what it was all about," Naruto said. "You were trying to weed out the weakest of us so you'd only have to train two of us."

Kakashi shook his head. "No, I was trying to teach you about teamwork."

"Teamwork," Yugo said flatly. "You tried to teach us teamwork...by turning us against each other."

"Yup."

"What the heck is _wrong_ with you?"

Kakashi sighed and shook his head. "Are you familiar with the Inverse Ninja Law?" He looked at them. "No? None of you? What are they teaching at the academy? Basically, it says that while we are the best solo operatives in the world, our synergy is a joke."

Naruto raised his hand like he was back in class. "What's synergy?"

"Teamwork."

"Then why didn't you just say teamwork?"

"Fine. I'll make sure to keep my vocab down to two syllables or less from now on."

"What's a syllable?"

Kakashi gave Naruto a flat look. "Okay, that one's on me. Moving on–"

"But what's a–"

" _Moving on._ I wasn't much older than you kids when the last Great Ninja War happened. Hundreds of Konoha's greatest ninjas charged into battle side by side, and they were slaughtered. Any one of them alone was practically a god, but together, the kept on tripping over each other and getting in each other's way, and the whole thing was about as horrifying as it was pathetic."

Kakashi didn't like giving lectures, but he needed to bring the point home.  
That's why we split you up into four-person teams," he continued. "Two or three ninjas can usually work together, but many more than that and it gets messy. And even then you keep on finding groups that take turns to fight their opponent one on one instead of working together, which is, well, dumb."

Kakashi looked at them, and he couldn't tell if his students were contemplating the wisdom of his words or zoning out. That was the problem with lectures. He should stick to object lessons.

"Well, that was the test," he said. "You all passed, congrats, I'll see you all tomorrow for your first mission."

"What time?" Naruto asked.

"Whenever I show up. It will be sometime in the morning. Probably."

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A/n You know, in all the Naruto fanfics I've read, I really haven't seen many people go into a lot of detail with the bell test. I think it's because when Naruto is ridiculously overpowered, he passes the test without even trying or gets another sensei altogether (because Kakashi is a lazy schmo who doesn't really teach anything), and when the story is closer to canon, it skips over this test because nothing new happens. (I skipped through the parts where they fought Kakashi one on one because it was about the same as the canon. For the Wakfu fans who aren't familiar with Naruto, you probably missed the ten thousand years of pain joke...and that's really for the best.)

It seems like Kakashi gets a lot of hate in the fandom for being a bad teacher, but in his defense, he was skilled enough so he never needed a drill sergeant, and judging how the only person in the show who became a carbon copy of their sensei was Lee, I think that he considered his duties to be more supervising and team building than anything else.

Anyway, thanks for reading. If you see anything that you think I should change, let me know.


	4. Chapter 4

Wakfu Way of the Ninja

Chapter Four

Sometime the next morning, Kakashi showed up and found his team playing cards. Good. That showed both patience and planning, useful skills. He didn't know who brought them, but Yugo was dealing.

"Ah, _dang_ it!" Naruto said, looking at his hand. "Again!"

"Would you like to fold?" Yugo said. "You _can_ do that, you know."

Naruto shook his head. "I never back down. That's _my_ way of the ninja."

"That might not work so well with poker, but okay," Yugo said. "I'll bet three shuriken."

"I see your three shuriken and raise you two kunai," Naruto said.

"Are you sure you … nevermind. Hinata?"

Hinata put her cards face down on the grass. "I fold."

"Okay, I have a two-pair, and Naruto, you have … you have a jack high."

"Do I win?"

"No."

" _Dang_ it! Okay, one more. I have a good feeling about this one."

Kakashi approached the group and sat down next to them. "Deal me in."

Naruto looked up in surprise. "Kakashi! You're late!"

"I never said when I'd show up. I just said sometime in the morning."

"It's one thirty. The morning ended over an hour ago."

"Huh." He needed to get a watch. But if he did, then he wouldn't have an excuse anymore. Not that anyone believed his excuses anyway.

"But now that you're here, we can go on missions and train and stuff!"

"This is training. Deal me in."

"That's what Yugo said. _I_ wanted them to throw kunai at me until I learned how to catch them in midair with my back turned while reading a book–I needed to get a book, though–but Yugo said you can learn ninja skills from playing cards, like, um, what were they again?"

"Reading people's emotions and hiding your own," Yugo said while passing out cards. He grinned sheepishly. "It seemed safer than trying to kill each other until you arrived."

"Good, what else?"

"Um, risk analysis?" Hinata said.

"Yes, go on."

"Luck!" Naruto said.

Was luck a skill? No, but it still played a big part in everything. "You're all missing the most important skill you can learn from playing cards."

"What's that?" Naruto asked.

"I'll show you. Who wants to start the betting?"

Naruto picked up his cards. " _Finally_! Okay, I'll bet everything." He pushed a pile of kunai and shuriken and a few smoke bombs into the middle.

"I fold," Hinata said.

Yugo looked at Naruto carefully. "I don't _think_ you're bluffing. But I'm not sure you remember what each hand is worth, either."

"Hey, that only happened, like three times! And besides, this is my first time playing this game, so cut me some slack!"

Yugo frowned and looked at his hand. "Well, if I fold, I might miss Kakashi's lesson, so what the heck. I'll see you."

"I'll bet one explosive tag."

Naruto gasped as he looked down at the piece of paper with a seal on it and the kanji for _boom_ on the back. He licked his lips to stop himself from drooling.

"Wow. If we're betting five shuriken to a kunai and three kunai to one smoke bomb, how much is an explosive tag worth?"

"At this point, I think we just round it to everything," Yugo said. He showed his cards. "I have three of a kind."

Naruto grinned. "Then read 'em and weep, Yugo. I got five red cards. That's, what, a straight or a flush?"

"Five diamonds or five hearts is a flush," Yugo explained. "Three hearts and two diamonds is nothing."

"What? I think you're just making up rules as you go along."

"I'm not! It's on the back of the card box."

"It doesn't matter either way," Kakashi said. He showed them his hand, a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts.

"Now, is that a straight or a flush?" Naruto asked Yugo.

"It's both."

"Oh. So, did he win?"

Hinata reached down to her own cards and flipped over a queen of hearts of her own. "He cheated."

"Ha!" Naruto said. "She caught you!"

"Good thing, too," he said. "Otherwise, I would have had to do it again. But yes, the most important skill you can learn from playing cards is how to cheat."

Yugo frowned. "Not the way I play it."

"And when you play, do you play to win or to have fun?"

"To have fun."

"And if you were betting your life?"

Yugo didn't answer.

"In a fight," Kakashi continued, "you can't decide how strong your enemies are, but you can decide how much of your own strengths you bring. It doesn't matter who would win in a 'fair' fight if you never let a fair fight occur."

Naruto nodded. "Like yesterday, when you set up all those traps for me. I still don't know how you managed to put them up so fast."

"And I still don't know how you managed to fall for every single one of them," Kakashi replied. "Now, what I did here wasn't very effective. Can anyone tell me why?"

"Because Hinata caught you!" Naruto said. Hinata looked away and blushed at the attention. "If this were a real casino, we'd be kicking your butt out of here by now."

 _Yeah, good luck with that._ "Exactly, and cheating in a fight is worthless if your opponent knows you're doing it. If you know that your opponent has laid a trap for you, you're not going to fall into it. If your opponent knows you're trying to sneak up on him, then you're not sneaking up on him."

The kids should have learned that at the academy, but since Hyuugas were impossible to sneak up on, they seldom valued learning the craft themselves, and Naruto was, well, maybe he was just stupid. And Yugo seemed to be well brought up, which was nearly as bad.

He stood up when Yugo offered him the explosive tag he bet. "We weren't playing for keeps," he said. "My dad says I can't gamble until I'm eighteen."

"But he's fine with you being a ninja."

"Yeah. Why?"

Yep, he was well brought up. That was going to be trouble. "No reason. But I was playing for keeps."

Yugo looked down at the tag. "So who won?"

Naruto looked up eagerly. "Ooh! Was it me?"

"No," Kakashi said. "Hinata saw through my deception, so she gets it."

"W-what?" she asked. "But … but I folded."

Kakashi shrugged. "So?" They taught how to use explosive tags at the academy, didn't they? Well, as long as she didn't set it off on accident, she'd be fine. "Come one, let's head over to the Hokage's Tower and get you kids a mission."

Naruto grinned. " _Finally_!"

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"Our mission is to do _what_?"

The Hokage took a drag on his pipe with his, "I'm too old for this job," expression on his face. "You are to clean up Kiwinichi Park. All relevant details, including pay, are included on this scroll." He handed a scroll to Kakashi, who bowed respectfully.

"But that's not a _mission_!" Naruto protested. "That's community service!"

"Can't it be both?" Yugo asked.

"You're not helping."

"But really, the park need to get cleaned up, and we need a mission. What's the problem?"

"We're ninjas, not janitors! Come on, old man, isn't there a missing nin that needs to be tracked down, or someone needing a bodyguard? Ooh! You could send us on a heist! I always wanted to do a heist!" Both the Hokage and Kakashi gave him a sharp look. "Um, in a legal, Konoha-approved sort of way."

The Hokage sighed. "I do happen to have a number of C-rank missions with a certain level of risk. But they are reserved for genin and chunin who have proven that they can handle the danger, that they can work together effectively as a team, and, most of all, that they can follow orders. You want a C-rank mission, Naruto? Prove you're worthy of it by showing me that you can handle the D."

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Judging by the discarded liquor bottles, chicken bones, and discarded underwear, Kiwinichi Park had been the victim of a few wild parties recently. There was a playground in the middle with a few sculptures that at one point might have been fun and kid-friendly, but with much of the paint eroded, it had become nightmarish zombies of their former glory.

"Well, this is one heck of a first mission," Naruto said, glowering. "We'll need all of our courage and our strength to get through _this_ alive."

"I know what you mean," Yugo said with mock seriousness. "Some of that broken glass looks vicious."

Kakashi sat down on a bench. "I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle," he said, pulling out a book.

Naruto glared at him. "Are you going to just sit there and read the whole time?"

"Yup." He glanced up from a page. "This is your mission. I'm just here to supervise."

"Supervise what?"

"Your learning."

"And what, dare I ask, are we supposed to learn from picking up garbage?"

"I'm sure you can figure it out."

"It would be a lot easier if you just told us."

Kakashi didn't even look up from his book. "I didn't pick this job because it was easy."

"I'll bet."

"So what can we learn from this mission?" Yugo asked. "Not to litter? What do you think, Hinata?"

Hinata shrugged, hiding her face further behind her collar. "Um, obedience? And humility?"

"Obedience?" Naruto repeated. "Humility? I don't want to learn either of those things! 'Because someone told you to' is the worst reason to do anything _ever_!"

"I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for missions that hire us out to do whatever we want," Kakashi said.

"Yesterday's mission was all about teamwork," Yugo said. "Maybe this is the same thing, to see how well we work together. Efficiency?"

Naruto furrowed his brow, then his eyes lit up. "Hey, Kakashi! Is there a reward for getting the mission done early?"

Kakashi scoffed. "No. If you get done early, the Hokage will just send you on another one."

"Really?" He beamed. "Okay, that's it then. I'm going for the record! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" An army of Naruto clones appeared and ran off to every corner of the park to pick up garbage. Whenever one found a candy wrapper or a shoe, it would return and drop it into the dumpster, but soon they swarmed the dumpster, shoving each other out of the way to drop off their trash and return for more.

It would have been more efficient to form a line, Yugo thought, but no, even that would waste too much time. "Hey, Naruto!" he said. "Don't come to the dumpster. Stay out in the park and gather the trash into a bunch of small piles. I'll throw you a portal to drop it into."

Twenty Naruto clones looked at him. "OKAY!" they said in unison.

Yugo waited by the dumpster as the clones spread out and went to work. Hinata looked around as though not sure what part she should play. If she went into the field, she'd be no better than another clone.

"Hey, Hinata," Yugo said. "When Naruto finishes with the big stuff, we'll need you to use your Byakugan to spot check everything."

Hinata nodded, and within a few minutes, they were done. Yugo didn't know what the record was, but he was pretty sure they just broke it.

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"That was pretty good," the Hokage said back at the tower. "I expected that mission to take you longer."

Naruto tried to contain his excitement. "What can I say? These D-rank missions just aren't enough of a challenge. Maybe you could _C_ if something tougher is available."

The Hokage gave him a flat look. "Right. Well, it just so happens that I have here an extremely dangerous …."

"Yes?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"And difficult …."

"Yes? Yes?"

"Babysitting mission."

Naruto's face fell. "What? You're kidding me!"

The Hokage sighed. "Alright, I confess. I _am_ kidding you."

His eyes lit up again. "You are?"

The Hokage nodded. "Yes. It's not dangerous at all."

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"So don't think of it as a babysitting job," Yugo said as they walked to the address on their mission scroll. "Think of it as a bodyguard job."

"Bodyguard, right," Naruto said, nodding. "Real ninjas do that all the time, don't they? Hey, do you think anyone's going to try to kill, um, what were their names again?"

"Miriko, age five, and Shinto, age eight," Hinata said, reading the scroll. She felt like she was the only person on the team nervous about the mission. Their first mission had been easy; one could take a long time to clean up a park, but not _fail_. While babysitting, their charges could jump out a window, swallow a fork, or run away if she looked away for too long, and that could haunt her for the rest of her life.

And it would look bad on her record. Her father would be horribly disappointed. Again.

"I doubt it," Yugo said. "If someone wanted to kill them, I think the scroll would have mentioned it. Besides, they're kids. No one wants to kill you until you're …." He turned to Kakashi. "About how old do you need to be for that?"

"Oh, I'd say twelve is average."

"Huh." Naruto sounded disappointed. "So no one's going to try to … hold on, _I'm_ twelve!"

Kakashi shrugged. "Funny how that works."

"He's just messing with us," Yugo said.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because since we've met him, he has done nothing else."

"I'm being perfectly serious this time," Kakashi said. "No one wanted to kill me until after I turned thirteen, but I was an exceptionally likable child."

Naruto gave Yugo a look. "You're right, he _is_ messing with us. But back to the mission, we can't protect the kids from danger if there _is_ no danger, so I'm thinking two of us babysit, and the third person has to try to kidnap them."

Yugo nodded thoughtfully. "It could be interesting. How are we going to decide who's on offence and who's on defense?"

Naruto grinned. "Rock paper scissors. It's the universal problem solver."

"I'm going to have to stop you kids right there," Kakashi said. "What you're doing is deliberately making your mission more difficult than it needs to be, and there's not a single respectable ninja in Konoha who does that. Except for maybe Gai, and, well, he's Gai."

"Who's Gai?" Naruto asked.

"A guy I know."

"Gai's a guy you know?" Yugo asked. "I bet you made up that name just so you could make that pun."

"I wish. But if you don't know Gai, give it time. He likes to announce himself. A lot. And he wears spandex."

"A guy named Gai in spandex," Naruto said. "Yeah, he's starting to sound made up to me too."

Hinata wasn't sure. She had studied body language, as was expected of all members of the Hyuuga Clan, and Kakashi hadn't displayed any of the telltale signs of lying. But Hinata wasn't a master of the craft, Kakashi was an experienced Jounin, and he seemed like the type to be a serial liar just to convince them to be more discerning.

They arrived at the client's' house. The family lived in the suburbs in one of Konoha's residential districts. It wasn't in a walled off neighborhood like her clan had, but somehow it seemed safer without being imposing.

A civilian couple answered the door. The man was thin, with short black hair that was thinning in places and glasses. The woman had a gentle face and long brown hair in a braid.

Naruto took the lead and announced themselves. "Team Naruto, reporting for duty, Mr. and Mrs. … what are their names again?"

Hinata opened the scroll. "Mikaya."

"And since when are we Team Naruto?" Yugo asked.

"Oh, sorry, did you have another name in mind?"

"We're Team Seven," Kakashi said.

"See, that's a boring name," Naruto said. He turned to Hinata. "What do you think? Team Naruto sounds way better, right?"

"Um …." How could she respond to that? "I'm fine with anything, really." The couple watched them with growing concern. If Hinata had been willing to step up, she'd have tried to convince them that they were more professional than they sometimes appeared, but ….

"The Hokage sent four of you?" Mr. Mikaya asked. "There must be some mistake. We only ordered one D rank."

"They're rookies," Kakashi explained. "They're still at the stage where this doubles as training."

"I see," he said. "And …."

"And the fee is the same no matter how many people it takes," Kakashi said.

"Ah." Mr. Mikaya's expression relaxed, though his wife kept a forced smile on her face. "Come on in. We just need to grab a few things. Make yourselves at home."

They filed in through the door and were greeted by a wide eyed child. "Woah, you got _four_ of them this time!" The boy had short dark hair, green eyes, and had the sleeves of a sweatshirt tied around his neck like a cape. "Am I in trouble?"

"No, they just …." Mr. Mikaya turned to the team. "These are our kids. I'll let you all get acquainted." The couple went through a door to another room.

"So," the boy–Shinto, according to the scroll–said. "Do you guys do any tricks?"

"Tricks?" Naruto said. "Kid, we're professionals, seasoned veterans of the ninja arts. We've seen things– _done_ things–that you would not believe. We do not do _tricks_." He grinned. "But I do like showing off. Check this out!" He put his hands together, forming a hand seal.

"Keep it family friendly, Naruto!" Yugo warned.

Naruto made a shadow clone, and both of them looked at Yugo. "Of course. I'm not an idiot."

"I've seen this trick before," Shinto said. He poked the clone and gasped. "It's real!" He turned to Yugo. "What can you do?"

"Well, I can't make shadow clones, but I can do this." He traced a circle with the glowing palm of his hand and made a portal and jumped through it, appearing behind the boy.

"Wow! That's so cool!"

Naruto smirked. "Yeah, that's actually the only trick he knows. _I_ know things that you can't learn in the academy, techniques I invented."

"I think Shinto might be a bit too young for your original techniques," Yugo said.

"Of course not. He's almost as old as Konohamaru, and that guy went crazy over them."

"Who's he?"

"A groupee."

"You have a groupee?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"How'd you get a groupee?"

"I gave his grandpa a bloody nose."

Yugo considered that. "Makes sense. Kind of a jerk move, but makes sense."

"No, it's not like that! The old man tried to make me act all dignified and stuff for a picture, and really, the Hokage of all people should know better than that."

Hinata smiled at the exchange. For all his expressed frustrations at being issued a babysitting mission, he seemed to be getting into the mood.

She spotted a little girl peeking out from behind a table. The girl had her brother's green eyes and she wore her hair longer and unbound. For a moment, she reminded Hinata of how her own little sister, Hanabi, used to be, back before … well, during better times.

Hinata smiled at her. "Hello. My name's Hinata. What's your name?"

The girl chewed on a strand of hair and didn't answer.

What was the name on the mission scroll? "Is it … Miriko? Is that your name?"

Miriko's eyes grew wide. "Are you psychic?"

Hinata smiled again. "Maybe."

"What's my favorite color?"

And she had managed to dig herself into a hole. Maybe. The girl was wearing a blue shirt, blue jeans, and blue socks, so Hinata made an educated guess. "Blue?"

Miriko's eyes grew even wider. "Wow!"

Hinata smiled until she heard a voice from the other side of the door.

"I'm not leaving that monster with our children!" It was Mrs. Mikaya's voice, muffled so Hinata could barely hear it. Naruto and Yugo, still talking to Shinto, didn't notice at all, and Kakashi continued to read his book.

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Mr. Mikaya said. "It hasn't killed anyone in years, and there are three of them and one of … it, so what's the worst that could happen?"

"It could–it could be a bad influence!"

"Everyone's a bad influence on our children! Our kids are perfect!"

"The last ninja we hired wasn't. You know, the one who was always talking about the virtues of hard work? Shinto started cleaning his room on his own after that. For a few days."

Hinata heard a sigh. "So, what? Do we just cancel our night out?"

"Yes! Even if we didn't, you know we wouldn't be able to enjoy the evening while worrying about what that _thing_ was doing to our children."

Hinata heard footsteps coming towards her, and she moved away from the door so she wouldn't be caught eavesdropping.

Mr. Mikaya opened the door and stepped into the room. "So this is awkward, but the show my wife and I were planning on seeing got cancelled."

"Too bad," Kakashi said, glancing up from his book. "What show was that?"

"It was, um, well, it doesn't matter now. But since we're not going anywhere, we really don't need a sitter."

"You sure?" Kakashi asked. "There are plenty of good places that are open downtown. I could recommend one or two."

"Yes, well, there's really nothing we'd rather do than just stay home with the kids." Both he and his wife wore the same smile: forced, nervous, and afraid.

"Your call. But you do know that these missions are nonrefundable, right?"

Mr. Mikaya's face fell. "They're not?"

"That's fine," his wife said quickly. "I guess there's nothing left for you here, so you're free to go." Her eyes flickered toward the door hopefully.

"Well okay then," Kakashi said. "Mission accomplished." He walked out the door without making sure the rest of the team was following him.

"What, already?" Yugo asked. "Well, good luck on joining the ninja academy next year, Shinto."

Naruto stood still, a dazed expression on his face until Yugo shook him. "Oh, right. Yeah, see if you can get into Iruka's class. He's the best."

Hinata wasn't sure what the parents had been talking about, but they seemed to have been convinced that one of her teammates was dangerous. _Monster_ , they had said. Perhaps they were talking about Hinata herself? No, whoever it was they were talking about had killed people in the past, and Hinata had never done that.

So who was it that the civilian couple was so afraid of? It couldn't be Naruto. She liked him more than she was willing to admit, but there was little in him that could inspire fear. His grades in the academy were so bad it was a miracle he had passed at all. The only unexplainable thing about him was a large chakra seal on his stomach, and nearly everyone in the Hyuuga clan had one on the forehead.

Yugo? That didn't make any sense either. He came from a civilian family, and while some of the great clans of Konoha looked down on such, at least he didn't have generations of blood behind him. When Hinata activated her Byakugan, she could see what looked like wings growing under his hat, and that was a bit weird–well, very weird–but not frightening.

And that left … that left Kakashi. Of course. As a jounin, it would be surprising if he had never killed anyone, and covered by his forehead protector was an eye that wasn't his. Maybe she was biased because people had tried to cut out her eyes when she was younger, but that was still pretty dang creepy.

She bowed to the couple before leaving. Good manners were just good manners, and if she had children like they did, she wouldn't want Kakashi to babysit them either.

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Kakashi had a way of vanishing without being in a hurry, and he left the three of them as soon as they got out of the door. He seemed totally unfazed by the cancelled mission and considered it more like a quick victory instead of a failure.

Yugo felt mostly the same. He remembered a couple of babysitters growing up, but none of them came close to having Dad home, so if the Mikaya's decided to spend more time with each other, then good for them.

Naruto, though, seemed to be taking it personally, and his mood was contagious. When he was happy, he was loud happy, and when he was depressed, the silence was crushing. Hinata was the opposite and kept her moods muted, but Yugo could tell she was starting to echo Naruto's mindset.

"Well, maybe we'll get a fun mission tomorrow," Yugo said.

"Yeah," Naruto said, looking down. "Maybe."

Yugo didn't understand what was bothering him. Naruto hadn't even _wanted_ to go babysitting. He had wanted something big and challenging. Of course, after they got there, he had gotten into it and had grown more enthusiastic. No, Yugo realized. He hadn't _grown_ enthusiastic, he had _made_ himself enthusiastic, he had forced enthusiasm into his veins, and then the mission was yanked out from under him, leaving him … empty.

Well, Naruto was pretty resilient, and he'd manage to force himself into enthusiasm again on his own in a day or two … but what was the point of being on a team if you had to solo everything?

"Question," Yugo said. "How long do you think it will be before we get some actually fun missions?"

Naruto looked up. "I don't know. Maybe in a few years after we're all jounin they'll take us off picking up litter and move us up to painting fences."

Yugo nodded. "That seems like a gross misuse of our abilities, because let's face it, we're amazing."

Naruto's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Yeah! We are amazing."

It was working. "If I had a mission that required subterfuge, subtlety, and sick-awesome ninja tricks, I would definitely hire us. In fact, I think I will."

Naruto looked at him. "What?"

"See, I have a job to do that's perfectly suited to our unique skill sets, and I want to hire this team."

"You do?" Interest grew in Naruto's eyes, and then hunger. "This job of yours, is it difficult?

"Impossible."

"Dangerous?"

"Deadly."

He grinned. "Well, I'm game. What about you, Hinata?"

Hinata shot Yugo an unreadable look. "Okay."

"Great." His plan was working, if plan was even the right word. "Now we just need a place to work out the details."

"Oh, we could go over to my place," Naruto offered. "Of course, it's kind of hot there because the AC's broken. And it smells like a bit like rancid milk since the fridge stopped working. Maybe my place isn't the best to have people over. How about your place, Hinata?"

"Um, I don't think my father would approve."

"Your dad doesn't like you having your friends over?"

She shook her head. "I don't think he likes any of those things."

"Well that's no problem," Yugo said. "Because I know the perfect place. Follow me. I'll take you to the Crunchy Gobball." He didn't know what the mission was going to be, but he had _minutes_ to make something up. Plenty of time.

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The Crunchy Gobball had a warm, noisy, and friendly atmosphere and was the sort of place that Hinata would never patronize on her own, knowing that such a place was beneath her station. Whatever that meant.

"Hey Dad! I'm home!" Yugo jumped into the arms of massive man with a long, drooping mustache.

Hinata felt something shift in the pit of her stomach. She always did before such scenes. It wasn't jealousy, not really. Just a twinge of sadness. Even when her father had been proud of her, he had never been affectionate. She noticed the expression on Naruto's face, and immediately felt guilty. At least she had a father, even a cold, stern one.

She realized that Yugo was introducing them.

"… Naruto, and this is Hinata."

Hinata bowed respectfully as the big man greeted them.

"Welcome, welcome. Any friend of Yugo's is welcome here. Take a seat, have a meal on the house."

They sat down at an open table and Yugo jumped in and out of a portal and set down a pair of menus. He could always use his unique abilities as naturally as he could walk. It made her own use of the Byakugan feel clumsy in comparison.

Naruto glanced through the menu. "Do you serve ramen here?"

Yugo shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Though I can recommend the soup of the day."

"What's that?"

"It's steak."

"Do you have steak-flavored ramen?"

"We have steak-flavored steak."

"Okay, I'll have that."

"Perfect. And you, Hinata?"

"Um, do you have salad?"

"Our steak is cooked with vegetables."

"Could I have those by themselves?

"Sure. So that's one steak-flavored steak, and one steak without the steak." Yugo jumped through a portal, leaving them alone.

Hinata shot Naruto a furtive glance and realized that with the two of them sitting together at a restaurant, it was almost like they were on a date.

That didn't make it easier to make eye contact, which was difficult for her at the best of times. She looked away, and noticed some of the other patrons shooting them dirty looks. No, not them, _him_. Apparently, Naruto was known around here, and not well liked. Naruto, for his part, deliberately ignored them.

A portal opened over the table, dropping a plate in front of her, then another in front of Naruto, and finally a third, dropping Yugo.

"Alright," he said. "So, we've been on a team together for about three days now, and _every time_ Kakashi shows up, he's always reading the same orange book. Why do you think that is?"

Naruto shrugged. "He's a slow reader?" He tried to bite off a chunk of his steak without cutting it first.

"Maybe it's worth rereading?" Hinata suggested.

Yugo smiled mischievously. "Come on, guys. Use your imagination."

"Advanced ninja techniques," Naruto said with his mouth full. He swallowed. "Really, really cool ones."

Hinata doubted that, but she didn't contradict him.

"Exactly," Yugo said. "And Kakashi always teaches us in a roundabout way, right? Just yesterday he tried to teach us teamwork by turning us against each other."

"He wanted us to see underneath the underneath," Hinata said.

"Yes! The obvious choice was to compete against each other, the less obvious choice was to work together against him. Now we're in the same situation. He's supposed to train us to become better ninjas, but what has he done today? He got there late and spent the rest of the day reading his book while we did missions. The only explanation I can think of is that he's waiting for us to take the initiative."

Naruto's eyes lit up. "I like that! I always thought that the academy was so boring because we had to spend all day sponging up lectures to regurgitate on the tests, but we're not kids anymore! We're real ninjas, so _we_ get to decide how we learn! Um, so what was it we're supposed to be learning again?"

Yugo grinned. "Think about it. What's the main job of a ninja team?"

Naruto frowned. "Assassinations?"

Yugo gave him a flat look. "I don't think we're supposed to try to assassinate Kakashi. I don't think we _can_ assassinate Kakashi."

"Okay, bodyguarding?"

"He's not in danger either. Hinata, I know you have some ideas. What do you think?"

"Um, spying? Information gathering?"

Yugo grinned. "Exactly! He reads his book all day to taunt us. He might set us up with boring D missions for the next few years, but I guarantee that the next stage of our training is in that book, waiting for us to find out what it is."

WWW

The next day after their first mission they set their plan in motion.

"Well, that was fun," Yugo said.

"Fun?" Naruto repeated. "That was horrible. I never want to taste paint again."

"Take it as a learning experience," Kakashi suggested. "Next time you trip into an open paint can, close your mouth first. That's what I do, and to this day I have never tasted the stuff. Anyway, good job team, or at least decent job. I'll see you all tomorrow, same time same place."

"Now," Naruto said, "when you say 'same time,' do you mean when you asked us to meet you, or when you finally showed up?"

"Either or." He started to walk away.

"Hold on," Yugo said. "Before we all split up, who's up for a dip at the hot springs? My dad gave me four tickets yesterday, so there's enough for everyone." They had pooled their money together, bought those tickets, and had given them to his dad first, but it counted.

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In the hot springs, Kakashi left his book in his locker, so part one of the plan was a success. He kept his mask on though, which Naruto thought was weird, and Yugo kept his hat on, which left Naruto as the only sane person.

"So, do you ever take your hat off?"

"For what?"

"I don't know. To … do hatless stuff?"

"I don't do hatless stuff."

"Huh. How about you, Kakashi? Do you do maskless stuff?"

"Nope."

"Well, that's that then. I do naked stuff all the time, like peeing. I mean, I could go all the way back to the locker room, but the water here's already warm, and it's not like anyone's going to notice."

"I'm pretty sure we will notice," Yugo said, "and I'd rather not test it."

"Okay, fine," Naruto said, getting out of the water. "I'll pretend to be civilized and go in a toilet instead." Back in the locker room, he sent out a shadow clone to replace himself in the hot springs, got dressed, and left to get Hinata.

WWW

"I really do not feel comfortable with my part in this plan," Hinata said. She never had been. She should have brought it up before they settled on the plan, but if there was any way she could get out of it, she'd take it.

Naruto cocked his head. "You are? How come?"

" _Because_ ," she said. "I have to sneak into the boy's locker room!" Her face turned red just by saying it, and if their positions had been reversed and one of her teammates had needed to sneak into the girl's locker room, at least everyone would understand what was wrong. But there was some double standard involved so it didn't occur to either of them that there was anything perverse with her entering a situation where boys her age could be taking their clothes off in front of her.

"So?"

" _So_ , I have to sneak into the boy's locker room!"

"… and?"

"And what if I run into someone?"

He let out a laugh. "Don't worry about it. No one's going to know it's you."

"But, can't Yugo just open a portal into Kakashi's locker?"

"No, the lockers are too small, his portals are too big, and he needs to keep an eye on Kakashi. I can't pick locks very well, so that leaves you. Now quit worrying and show me your sexy technique."

She blushed again. "It's just a transformation technique."

"If it comes with a sex change, it counts."

She opened her mouth to argue, but she had nothing more to say. She formed a hand seal and took the form of her cousin Neji. She shared his eyes and skin tone, but he was taller and had longer hair. The differences weren't just superficial either. He was fierce, driven, _confident_. He was everything a Hyuuga should be.

She noticed Naruto smirking. "So that's what you're into."

"Um, what?"

"Come on, I'll show you where Kakashi's locker is."

She followed him into the locker room–the _boy's_ locker room, where there would be boys of all ages in varying states of undress. She swallowed and kept her eyes fixed her eyes on the floor following Naruto's feet.

"Neji, my eternal rival!"

 _Oh no._ A pair of feet appeared in front of her, cutting her off. _Bare_ feet. She closed her eyes.

"So you too have decided to relax from a day of hard training in Konoha's fine onsen! Truly, there is no better way to revitalize the springtime of one's youth!"

Hinata didn't consider herself a bad person, but her karma was _horrible_. Whoever this was apparently knew Neji, and he was probably naked. But no matter who he was, Neji wouldn't face him with his eyes closed and head bowed. He would be fierce, driven, and confident. She straightened her neck and faced the, well, the ceiling mostly, and opened her eyes.

Neji's "eternal rival" was a boy a bit older than her with black hair, thick eyebrows, and abs. _Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down._

"Will you not speak? Truly your nature of being both strong and silent gives nothing away." He smiled like he was advertising toothpaste.

Speak? Right, she needed to say something, something that only Neji would say. "Um …." Brilliant. To make matters worse, she looked down reflexively and the boy's angry elephant trumpeted at her. _Oh no, someone help me!_

"Harem no jutsu!" A dozen blonde naked women appeared out of nowhere, burying Neji's rival in old men's dreams.

"Aah! No! I'm sorry Gai-sensei! I failed you!"

Hinata hurried away, not sure how long Naruto's harem would distract him, and she found Naruto just around the next corner, still as a naked woman.

"That was priceless!" He doubled over in a fit of laughter, leaning against her. Still naked.

"Um, could you please change back now?" She was feeling dizzy, and if she fainted then she would have to answer a lot of awkward questions.

"Right, right, because girls aren't allowed here." He dismissed the transformation and returned to his normal form in his signature orange jumpsuit. Thank goodness. "Anyway, Kakashi's locker is right here. It's all you, Hinata!"

She pulled out a wire and stuck it into the lock, using her Byakugan to find the tumblers. A moment later, there was a click.

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"Caw! Caw! I said, _caw_!"

Yugo looked up. They had decided that Naruto would signal with a bird call, but maybe he should have demonstrated it before hand. He glanced at Naruto's shadow clone, who nodded.

"Well, I should get going," he said. He left, got dressed, and met up with his teammates. "Did you get it? Yes! You got it!"

Naruto grinned. "Was there ever any doubt?"

"Alright, we need to be fast if we want to read it and put it back before Kakashi finds out it's missing. If there's a message in code, we'll just have to copy it down and decipher it later. So, who wants the honors?"

"Hinata," Naruto said. "Trust me, I've seen what she had to go through to get this book, and no one deserves this more than she does."

"Really? What happened?"

"I'd rather not say," Hinata said.

Naruto grinned. "I'll tell you later."

Hinata accepted the book, opened it, and screamed. She screamed, pulled out the explosive tag Kakashi had given her the day before, slapped it onto the book, and threw it into the air.

WWW

In the onsen, Kakashi heard an explosion and felt … something else. "What was that?"

One of Gai's students spoke up. "It sounded like an explosion." He was one of the only other people there, besides Naruto's shadow clone. He had a name, but Kakashi always mentally referred to him as Mini-Me.

"No, not just that. I felt … a disturbance."

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"Well," Yugo said. "I guess we're not putting the book back after all."

"It looks like the book was booby trapped," Naruto said. "Dang it! We should have been ready for something like that!"

"It wasn't trapped," Hinata said. She felt sick. In one day, she had snuck into the boy's locker room, seen two people naked including her genderbent teammate, and had stolen a book of–of _pornography_! She was turning into a pervert. She needed to lie down. She _wanted_ to curl up in a fetal position and cry, but she'd settle for lying down. "It's just that … there are some things that mortal eyes were not meant to see."

Naruto frowned. "But Kakashi reads that stuff all day."

That was true. He spent all day reading porn, and he had someone else's eye in his head. No wonder that family hadn't wanted him babysitting.

"Yeah," Yugo said. "But he always reads it with one eye closed. Mortal _eyes_ can't see it, but maybe one mortal eye can."

"Oh, that makes sense."

Hinata hadn't even wanted to go on this mission, but Naruto and Yugo were having fun and she didn't want to stop them, and now she was scarred for life.

"So what do we do now?" Yugo asked. "Kakashi's going to notice his book is gone."

"I bet he will." Naruto grinned. "But no one knows it was us. Anyone could have broken into his locker and stolen his book."

Yugo frowned. "I hope you're right, because if Kakashi finds out it was us, he is going to be _furious_."

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When Kakashi returned to his locker, he found his copy of _Icha Icha Paradise_ missing.

 _So, that's what they were up to._ For some reason he thought that his students had lured him to the hot springs to get him to take his mask off, but this was even more ambitious. They should have tried to return it before he noticed it was missing, but the _Icha Icha_ series was hard to put down. Well, they could keep it. He had over a dozen copies back home.

 _They grow up so fast._ Just the day before yesterday they were stumbling through the bell test, and already they were planning heists and stealing his porn. It nearly brought a tear to his eye.

Those kids worked well together, better than he had any right to expect. Maybe they were ready for the next stage in their training, because if they were advanced enough to steal his porn, they were ready to learn to climb trees. Really, if they were that advanced already, they were ready for anything.

WWW

A/n And here's chapter four. I could have skipped to where plot happens, but I thought it would be fun to have the team get used to ninja life at home first. Thank you to everyone who left reviews on this, and if there's anything you liked, anything that bothers you, or anything you'd like to see in the future, feel free to let me know.


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